Love, Luna
by RionahAnha
Summary: Because after it was all over, there was nothing left there for her. So she did the one thing that she could think of. She ran.


It wasn't a hard decision to make. After the Battle, after the funerals and the memorials and the grieving, there was nothing. She went back to Hogwarts and studied for her NEWTS. She ate dinner in the Great Hall with Ginny Weasley and tried to ignore the feeling that to live so normally – so _quietly -_ felt so wrong. She supposed it had to do with the past years of being so active, so vital, of being a part of something bigger than herself.

She supposed it had something to do with the school itself. Hogwarts wasn't the school she remembered. When she walked through the halls, she felt them. She sat in Potions and saw Snape sneering at her from behind the desk. She sat in Defense and tried not to remember Lupin, stretched cold and unseeing on the spotted stone floor. She sat in the Great Hall and tried not to remember how many there used to, and how few there were now.

She supposed it had a lot to do with the fame, if one could call it that. It was a strange thing, to come from years of being bullied and ignored to being ,suddenly, a hero. Voldemort was dead and the Wizarding World set to rights. Harry, Hermione, and Ron were the Golden Trio, with their names carved into the memorial in the entrance hall. And there, below them, a list.

Dumbledore's Army. And then- her name.

Sometimes, when she slept at night, she dreamed of those days, cramped in the Room of Requirement, casting Patronuses and feeling that secret thrill of doing something forbidden for a greater cause. She dreamed about her wild flight to London atop the threstrals, and the terrible battle in the Department of Mysteries, and the eve of Dumbledore's death and those awful few months in Snape's Hogwarts. She remembered the cold and terrifying days in the Malfoy's basement, and the Battle, and the dead-

So she left.

It was funny, she thought, how she spent some small portion of her childhood wishing she were like the other children, the ones that ran with friends around her village and skipped stones in the river together. She had wished, on many occasions, that Hogwarts was easier, that more people liked her. And now that everyone did, she discovered that she hated it.

So she sent her father an owl, left a note for Ginny under the portrait of the Fat Lady, and sneaked out the gates. Although it was very likely that she wasn't sneaking at all; the gates were never left open, as they were that morning when she left. Maybe someone knew she couldn't take it anymore - that this was what she had to do.

She Flooed from the Three Broomsticks to the Leaky Cauldron, and from there, to the British International Portkey Queue, where she spent every last galleon on one to Russia.

She didn't know what she was supposed to do, there in Russia. She huddled in the loo of the Russian International Portkey office and took out her worn copy of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_, closed her eyes, and let it fall open to a page. It was a Starkheaded Rotski, and she smiled when she saw it.

She took a room at an inn deep in the heart of the Russian woodlands. It was a small place, run by a kindly wizarding couple who spoke no English but made Luna her first ever baursaki. She told them that she was a Magical Creature Researcher, and they believed her wholeheartedly.

It was wonderful, she thought, to spend her days on her own, away from the prying eyes of those who knew her, expected things of her. Here, in the middle of nowhere, there was no one to point, no one to ask questions, no one to avoid. She was Luna, not Luna Lovegood, the daughter of the crazy Quibbler editor, not Luna Lovegood, a soldier in Dumbledore's Army and a war hero of sorts. She was Luna, and just Luna.

It took four weeks for her friends to catch up. She woke one morning to a tapping on her windowpane. It was a great tawny owl, shivering against the glass, a letter clutched between his beak. She let him in and fed him bits of bread while she read.

_Luna,_

_You're loony, you know that? Running off like that and scaring us all half to death. Your father's hired the entire Auror department to find you. They keep saying it's not safe to be out on your own, because there are still Death Eaters and we don't know how much they know of you. I hope you're keeping to yourself, out there in Russia...Your father will be sending you an owl shortly, I'm sure. He's broken up about this. We all are. Harry offered to come and find you himself, but there's so much to tie up here..._

_Luna, I miss you. Hogwarts isn't the same. There's no one here anymore who remembers what it was like. I'm the last of Dumbledore's Army here at school, did you know? When you were here it was all right, because we could be the last together. But now it's just me...I envy you, doing what you did. I'd like to drop out, but Mum and Dad won't hear of it. They don't understand what it's like. I can't even walk along the seventh floor corridor, Luna, without seeing him..._

_Keep in touch, all right? And stay safe. I'll be waiting._

_Ginny_

She sent Ginny a quick letter, then, spurred on by her sudden guilt, sent them all letters: her father, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville, Mrs. Weasley, even Bill and Fleur. She told them all the same things: that she was happy, she was fine, she was safe- and that she wasn't coming home.

She left Russia after four months. She would have liked to say it was because she had a lead on a Rotski, but that was untrue. She hadn't done any research, none at all. There were no leads to be had in Russia, although she was sure that she would find some elsewhere.

She left because when she came downstairs one morning to breakfast, there was a new wizarding family there. They were decidedly poor but large, with six brown haired little boys and girls, their faces buried in bowls of porridge. She thought nothing of them until she passed their table on her way to her own and one of the boys upended his bowl onto the floor.

"It's her!" He screeched, flinging a spoon at her, so fast that porridge flung neatly off of the end and splattered over her blouse. "Daddy- It's her! Luna Lovegood-"

"Samson, sit down!" His father snapped irritably. "Sit down and leave the poor girl alone-"

"Daddy, she was there! I have her card!" And he dug from his pocket a stack of Chocolate Frog Cards, hastily dumping them on the table, sorting frantically through. Luna stood and watched dumbly as he found the one he wanted and thrust it under his father's nose. "See, Daddy? Luna Lovegood, member of Dumbledore's Army from 1995 to 1997. Fought alongside Harry Potter in the Battle at the Department of Mysteries, the Battle of the Astronomy Tower, and the Batttle of Hogwarts-"

Luna snatched the card from the little boy and stared at it. Her face, her silvery grey eyes and her wispy blonde hair and her pale, peaked smile, stared back. She felt a terrible numbing sensation in her stomach. She didn't even know she had a card- how could she have a card and not know? Wasn't someone supposed to tell her? She handed the card back to the little boy and left the dining room amidst the beginnings of stares and murmurs. She packed her bags and Flooed out after paying her bill.

She took a Portkey to St. Petersburg and found a room in another inn, where she sent off a letter to Ginny. It was three lines long and a glorious waste of parchment.

_Ginny,_

_I have a Chocalote Frog Card?_

_Luna_

She got the reply a week and half later. Ginny sent her an equally short letter and a stack of cards –_ given to us by the Frog people themselves _- which Luna took an entire night to pour over. There was herself, and one for Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville...the entire Order of the Phoenix was here, including Severus Snape and Sirius Black. There was one for each of the Weasleys, and the twins shared a card, two smiling bright faces grinning up. There was one for every student who perished at the Battle at Hogwarts- Colin Creevey and the Patil twins and several dozen more students she recognized vaguely from her years at school. She sorted through the cards and then, in the soft light of the breaking dawn, she cried herself to sleep over them.

She stayed another half a week in St. Petersburg, dwelling over her options. She had very little money left, and going home to England was out of the question. She didn't know how to go about looking for magical creatures on her own, and she wished, for the first time, that she had brought her father along with her. So she did the one thing she could think of. She flooed to Romania and found Charlie Weasley.

She hardly knew the man- she had met him less than a handful of times, and all of those were on less than happy occasions. She had fought with him at the Battle and mourned with him at the funerals, and now, she was going to work with him.

She was Apparated to the camp – because she had never taken the test- alongside a kindly gentlemen who claimed he was the cook there. She went with him grudgingly, because he smelled of fish and although that wasn't a bad thing, the smell reminded her of the squids breaking the glass jars in the room and one squeezing Ron Weasley lifeless...

Charlie Weasley met her at the gate. He was exactly as she remembered him: short and stocky, with tanned arms bursting underneath tattered sleeves. He wore his hair long and shaggy, pulled back into a tail like Bill. He looked shocked to see her- shocked, and maybe a little angry.

"What are you doing here?" He asked as he pulled her into his tent. "Luna- aren't you supposed to be at Hogwarts?"

"I ran away," she told him simply. She watched his eyes round and his brows disappear into his fringe of red bangs. "Five months ago. I've been in Russia. I'm searching for Starkheaded Rotskis."

"Rotskis? In Russia?" Charlie chortled. "Everyone knows they're in Greenland."

"Oh." Luna sat down on a barrel, slowly. "Greenland? I'm very far off course, aren't I?"

"I would say so." Charlie sat down opposite from her, on a cot that was piled with green blankets and shirts. He studied her closely, and Luna found that she could not, for some reason, meet his eyes. She looked around the tent instead.

"Why don't you enlarge it?" She frowned. "It's rather small in here." 

"It's big enough for me." He stood up, raked a hand through his hair, took a few steps, and sat back down. "Listen, Luna, you know you can't stay here."

"I can't?"

"No, Luna, you can't. This isn't an adventure camp – this is my job. I can't have underage Wizards running loose around here. It's dangerous-"

"Dangerous? How so?"

"They're _dragons_." He shook his head. "These aren't wrackspurts or nargles, Luna. They're real, live animals, and they're dangerous."

"You seem to have done alright with them."

"I've had training."

"I'm not with out skills of my own, you know."

He heaved a large sigh of frustration. "I know that, Luna. The entire wizarding world knows it. But those aren't the kind of skills you need to have out here." He leaned forward, suddenly very intense. "Luna... what are you running from?"

"Nothing," she told him, but the lie felt cold on her tongue.

She took Charlie's advice and went to Greenland. She wasn't sure what to expect there, but Charlie, who accompanied her to the Portkey and lent her some money, told her what to do. "Go to the Greenland Internation Liason of Magical Creatures," he told her, "In Nuuk, and apply there. Being who you are, you should have no problem."

She didn't tell him that that was the last thing she wanted to do. She didn't want to garner anything dependent on who she was or what she had done. Was it too much to ask to be able to start over?

She went to the Greenland Internation Liason of Magical Creatures and asked for an application. The witch at the desk, a short lady with curly golden hair and green nails, gave her a pass to take her to the Internship Office on the sixth floor. As she passed the note to her, she remarked, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

Luna took the note. "I doubt it," she said, although there was no doubt at all.

She went to the sixth floor and waited for two hours in a waiting room with a handful of young wizards and witches, all dressed in the blue furred caps of Durmstrang. She sat next to a young girl who was giggling into a brochure, but stopped long enough to give Luna a strange look.

"You're not from school," she said, and Luna shook her head.

"No, I'm not," she said, and the girl cocked her head.

"Are you applying?"

"Yes." Luna paused. "Are you?"

The girl shook her head. "We're here only on field trip. You know, to look into possible prospects for out future. It's OWLS year, you know." She coughed. "Where did you graduate from?"

Luna felt what might have been her first, short pang of regret. "I didn't," she said, and buried her face in her application.

When she was escorted into the office of the Head of Interns, she was shocked to find that she was a little bit nervous. The Head, a stout, bald wizard by the name of Burgeione, folded his fat hands over his desk top as he studied her hastily filled out application.

"Well, your penmanship will certainly need some improving." He coughed. "Miss Luna..."

She straightened. "Just Luna, sir."

He sighed. "Miss, I need more than just a name. You know, with all the European wizarding unrest..." He gave her a crooked smile. "We need more than just a name."

"You already checked my wand." She held it out, and he watched her, unimpressed. "Sir, I just want to look for Rotskis."

"I appreciate your interest, miss, but I'm afraid that without more information, we can proceed no further." He sat back and Luna felt her hands tremble as she took the application back.

"Alright," she conceded, and on the blank line at the top of the page, she signed.

They gave her an office spot on the second floor, with the Department of Magical Creature Injury claims, where she spent seven months filing papers and organizing files. She was amazed at the amount of people that seemed to find injury with the creatures- a burn from a blast ended skrewt that needed grafting; a bite from a flobberworm that took off an arm; a scratch from an opaleye that festered and poisoned the leg. She took the reports and fetched coffee and wore simple black robes and every day wished for more.

She got a letter from Ginny, two weeks into her internship.

_Luna,_

_We got a letter from Charlie. He told us that you came to Romania to work with dragons with him, and Ron laughed, although Hermione and I thought it was very brave. You're doing a wonderful thing, Lu, chasing your dreams regardless of where they take you. I do wish I was the same way, but so many things hold me back here. Mum and Dad refuse to entertain the idea of leaving Hogwarts early. "This is what we fought for," Mum said in her last letter, "the freedom to send our children to school without worrying whether or not they'll come home for Christmas break alive, and I'll be damned if you take that from me." Although I rather seem to remember fighting for something a little bigger than that at the time..._

_Charlie says your going to Greenland, to work at the International Liaison of Magical Creatures. I love it. It's so you, Luna, and I hope you love it too. I know you will..._

_Ron and Harry have been taken into the Auror Training Academy. Mum is beside herself. She doesn't understand why they think they have to keep fighting when they've already fought so much. Neville is considering it also, though he might take a little while longer to come around. Ron and Harry are working hard on him though..._

_Graduation is in less than three months.I don't know how I will bear it, being the last one of our friends. I don't know how they'll do it, this year. They're planning a big memorial service, and McGonagall has asked me to invite you. She would like to have all of the D.A. There, she says. Let me know, alright? I miss you loads._

_Ginny._

Luna wrote off a letter, the longest she had written since she had left. She told Ginny about Romania and Greenland and about her new job. She declined McGonnagall's invitation, saying that she was _"much too busy with work. I can't go taking vacations when I'm brand new, you know? Sets a bad example and all_." She knew it was a lie though. They would have understood, had she asked. She found it easier not to.

After seven months, they moved her to the Research Office, where she had been aiming for all along. There, she worked with a team of older, more erratic wizards who came to work in ratty muggle work out clothes and sang the Weird Sisters while they worked. They were the ones in charge of researching the creatures rumored about but never seen- Crumpled Horned Snorkacks and Occamies and Shrakes, the creatures Luna had grown up imagining. She threw herself into the work, even taking coffee runs with more enthusiasm than usual. The researchers noticed her love for the work and welcomed her with a little bemusement but growing respect. One night, when working late, Cecilia, a tall witch in her early forties, asked her casually, "Luna, where on earth did you ever learn so much about these creatures?"

"My father was rather eccentric," she told her with a smile, "and it passed on to me. He used to tell me stories about them when I was little and well- I just never stopped believing them."

"He sounds like a wonderful man," Cecelia remarked coolly. "And what of your mother?"

"She died when I was nine," Luna told her and was surprised to find that, for the first time in her life, the familiar pang of loss did not strike. She marveled at it for a moment before smiling at Cecelia, and Cecelia, a little shocked, smiled back hesitantly.

In early July, she received two letters- one from Ginny and one from the Head of Research. She opened the one from the Research department first, and had to stuff her face in her pillow to hide her screams of joy when she read that she was being sent out with a team to the Himalayas, to follow the lead of a Giant Ratspatted Gilafone.

The second she read with more trepidation. Ginny had sent a picture with it. In it, Ginny, dressed in the gold and red robes of a Gryffindor graduate, was surrounded by a gaggle of people: Harry and Ron, in dark robes, their hair askew and the badges on their fronts reading "Auror Training Academy"; Neville, in a checkered maroon sweater, his hair tangled into a short tail, his bumbling smile aglow; Hermione, her bushy hair brushed back into soft ringlets, in a short purple dress, her body curved into Ron's side. A little boy, no older than a year, with shockingly bright blue hair and purple eyes, was struggling in Harry's arms. The lot of them were grinning wildly and waving, and Luna felt her eyes mist over as she turned the picture over. On the back, in Harry's short, rough scrawl, said : _We left a spot for you, you know._

The letter was longer.

_Dear Luna,_

_Well, guess what? I've done it. I graduated Hogwarts. Not top of class, like Percy, or even prefect like Bill,or Quidditch captain like Charlie. I like to comfort myself with the fact that I think I did a little more than they did their entire time at Hogwarts combined._

_Neville's agreed to try the Aurour Academy. Kingsley is happy about it, as is Harry and Ron. Hermione doesn't agree with it. She thinks we should all have gone on to work in the Ministry. She's been interned with the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, you know. S.P.E.W. Is going to be a real thing soon. Do you remember how Ron and Harry used to laugh at her for it? Well, they're not laughing anymore._

_The Memorial was awful. I mean, it was put together nicely and the speeches were wonderful and loads of people turned up, but it was awful. There was this stupid reading by Kingsley, where he read the names of all the lost. The entire audience was in tears, and when they read off Fred's name, Mum was hysterical and George ran out, even though he was supposed to stay for the D.A. Presentation. They wanted us all to say a few words, but Harry was the only one who did. It was the shortest speech there, and you could hardly tell what he was saying, he was crying so much. He really botched it, he did...I tried to tell him but it was lovely, but I couldn't lie like that. We all really wished you were there. McGonnagall was disappointed that there was such a small turnout. It did no good to explain that the reason for the poor turnout is that most of the D.A. Is dead, but still. It would have been nice to see you._

_Teddy Lupin- he's the little one with the blue hair- is growing so big. He's older than a year now, and he's honestly the sweetest little thing I've ever met. He's a Metamorphagus, like Tonks was, and he's such a handful. He's around quite a bit, because Andromeda is ill a lot and he seems to like Mum. Well, I think he mostly likes her biscuits and the gnomes in the garden, but he likes her too, I'm sure. I wish you would come meet him sometime soon..._

_I'm signing off now, but I've one more thing to say. I've saved the best for last. The Holyhead Harpies sent a scout to some of the games this year – we won the cup again, in case you were wondering- and they've offered me a spot. I go to Wales to train next month. It's amazing, me a professional Quidditch player! The boys are excited, although Mum keeps saying I must be careful or I'll have a hard time giving Harry children later on, as if I'm even thinking of that now..._

_As always, I miss you, Lu. I'll send you tickets to some games, if you wish._

_Ginny_

Her team spent the good part of the summer and fall preparing for their stay in the Himalayas. It was made up of tediously long briefings and training courses. Lune endured it silently, because it was one step closer to being out there, doing the real thing. She packed delicately and let her flat to someone else, a young wizard fresh out of school and unsure of life, and the night before she left, she wrote a letter to her father, because the communications in the mountains were spotty and she was unsure when she would get another chance. She kept it short.

_Dear Daddy,_

_I leave for the Himalayas in the morning. We're tracking down Giant Ratspatted Gilafones, and I wish that you could be here for this. I feel as if this is everything I've built towards, and I'm happy. I hope your happy too._

_Love, Luna_

_Ps- I promise you that when we find them, the Quibbler gets first rights to the pictures._

She and the six others that compromised her team left by Portkey at six thirty the next morning. They landed in India, and from there went by Floo to a city nearer the foothills of K2. They took another Floo to a small mountain village of wizards, set amongst the snowy drifts of the range. The village was small, little more than a settlement, and Luna was struck by the oddity of their dress- heavy embroidered furs and boots made of hide. They rarely unwrapped themselves from their furs, and when they did, Luna was shocked to see how thin and pale they were,as if they never saw any sun.

They stayed only a week in the village, because it was there that they would meet the rest of their team. Besides the six from Greenland, which included Luna and the leader, a tall stern wizard called Haughting, there were supposed to be three more from Austria and a loner from Ireland.

The three from Austria arrived the same night Luna got a reply from her father. It was a simple letter, saying only that he was happy, yes, very happy for her, that he missed her terribly and that he would love pictures of a Giant Ratspatted Gilafone, so long as she was in them. She didn't write a reply, but she folded the letter over and slept with it under her pillow that night.

When she came down the next morning, she was surprised to see that besides her team and the three Austrians, the Irish researcher was eating. She was the last one down, and she took hurried greetings from the assembled before taking her place at the table, where a house-elf was quick to serve her tea and eggs. As she ate, she was drawn into conversation with Velma, one of the researchers from Greenland.

"You see the one there? The one from Ireland?"

Luna took only a minute to glance up, to note his pale, smooth skin and high forehead, the shock of startling bright orange hair and cold blue eyes. She looked away again and nodded. "Yes."

"He is young – the youngest researcher ever to lead a team up the Amazon River, you know. They were looking for Bangled Himplesnakes, and they found them." Luna listened with half an ear- Bangled Himplesnakes were not of great interest to her, and besides, there were more important things to think about. Like leaving, for instance, that morning, on her first real adventure.

"- grandfather wrote a book, you know. They're all very big on magical creatures, the Scamanders, his grandfather wrote _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them-"_

Luna looked up. "Newt Scamander?" She asked, and Velma nodded.

"The one."

Luna looked at the Irish man again,watched the way he ate carefully, his shoulders hunched and his voice quiet as he sat in conversation with another researcher. "What did you say his name was?"

"Rolf," Velma said, "Rolf Scamander."

They trekked by foot up the mountain. It was hard, harder than Luna had been expecting. There wasn't much luggage, because it was ideal to take small bags and use enlargement charms, but there was nothing to be done for the burden on the legs that the climb was. When they set up camp that night, Luna huddled in her tent with Velma and Bertha, discussed the upcoming days and the things that they hoped to accomplish.

"I would like to lead teams, eventually," Bertha said, "I want to be front page of the _Magical Creatures International Newsletter."_

"Me too," Velma agreed dreamily. She was stretched out on her bunk, waving her wand lazily in the air and casting simple heating charms. "I'd like an award, maybe, something for discovering some new type of creature." She sighed heavily. Then: "What about you, Luna?"

Luna was startled by the question. What did she want? The front pages of magazines didn't appeal to her- she had had that. She didn't want the awards. She had a plaque in Hogwarts and several in the Ministry and a statue in the Department of Mysteries. She had a Chocolate Frog Card, for crying out loud.

"I just want to find something," she said simply. "A Crumple Horned Snorkack, maybe."

"There's no such thing."

"There is. My father, he had one, when I was in school. It was a birthday present, when I turned fifteen."

"He didn't have a Crumple Horned Snorkack," Velma scoffed, and her face was so like those that her classmates used to make ate her that Luna found herself rolling over.

"He had the horn," she said shortly, "and it blew up."

It took them a week to reach their destination, a small clearing underneath a ridge where they would stake camp for good. They arranged their tents amid a bitterly wild snow storm, and when their _lumos _failed to provide enough light to finish the task, Luna cast a _patronus_, one big enough to light the entire clearing. Her teammates gaped, open mouthed, as her silver hare bounded around the clearing, and Velma turned to her, a little awed.

"It's so big," she breathed. "Who taught you to cast it, Lu?"

_Harry Potter_, she thought, but she only shrugged and turned back to her own tent. "School," she said simply, and caught Rolf Scamander, his brilliant orange hair hidden by a hood, looking quickly away from her.

They set up an observation tent and took turns taking journeys out, some that lasted up to several weeks at a time. Being a field researcher, Luna soon found, was not an amazing adventure like she had once thought it would be. It was alot of tedious squabbles and cold nights and poor food, and even more disappointing leads and downcast spirits.

She did not get to go out on any trips until three months in, and when she did, it was a two day hike to a spot where a local had claimed to have seen a Gilafone. There was nothing, no evidence, no leads, nothing that even a carefully cast Discovering charm could find. They spent the night and headed back the next day, where the team was downcast. Luna was disappointed until Haughting told her that a letter had arrived for her while she was gone, and she took it hastily to her tent. It was, as usual, from Ginny, and there were pictures: Ginny, in the dark green and gold of the Holyhead Harpies, standing with a broom clutched in one hand and Harry's hand in the other, grinning. There were a few of her in the air, and one of Filibusters screaming the score across the sky at a pitch- _HARPIES 340- CANNONS 140. _On the back, Ginny had written in capital letters _WE'RE TAKING THE CUP!_

_Dear Luna,_

_By the time this reaches you, you might already know, because it will be in the news everywhere, but the Holyhead Harpies are going to the English National Cup, for the first time in 100 YEARS I'm trying not to get too excited, because we'll be playing the Arrows, and they're team is phenomenal. But still – I'll be playing in the Cup! It's too big to even think about in much detail now. Everyone says they're very supportive and excited, especially the boys. McGonnagall owled me congratulations herself. She says she is kicking herself for never making me captain while I was at school, although I'm almost glad of it. With everything that was happening then, well...I'm not sure it would have been something I could handle._

_Harry and Ron are nearly done with their Auror training. Kingsley said that he is amazed at their discipline and talent, and that Neville is coming along nicely too. It doesn't surprise me in the least- they've been fighting Dark Wizards since their first year in school, haven't they? Training is all well and good, but there's nothing like practical application._

_I don't know if you know this, but it's been a year and seven months today since you left school. Your father told me that you were in the Himalayas, looking for Giant Ratspattered Gilafones – I had to look that up!- and that that's very impressive, to be on a team so soon. I always thought you would do it. You were doing things ahead of your time all the time. I think we all were._

_The Cup takes all my time. We're always practicing, and practicing, and practicing. I hardly see Harry these days, or my family. Mum writes quite a bit, and she's always hopping a Portkey when she gets the chance, but there are days when I wish I could just be back home at the Burrow, with everyone, or at Hogwarts, going to class or the dining hall or the library. Is it strange that I feel as if so much of my childhood was lost? I don't know. All I know is that when I was leaving, I was glad to go, and now that I'm gone, I wish I was back._

_Did I tell you yet, about Fleur? She and Bill are expecting. I think it will be a boy, because that's all Weasleys ever have, but Fleur insists its a girl. Bill says that she can have a merman for all he cares, as long as it's healthy. I would like a boy, someone I can teach to fly, because Fleur says she would never let any daughter of hers climb atop a broom. I think that's a dig towards Mum, but she bears it well, because I guess letting me learn to fly has paid off, right?_

_Anyways, all the best of luck with your hunting! I'll write you soon._

_Ginny._

That night, Luna had a dream. In it, she was running down a hallway lined with shelves of small glass orbs. Ginny was at her side, bleeding from a cut on the side of her head, her blood as red as her wild amber hair. They were running hand in hand, and there was a spike of fear in her chest, so thick and cold that it threatened to suffocate her. Behind them were wild screams and erratic laughter and the shattering bursts of hexes meant to paralyze and curses meant to kill. Ginny's hand was wet in her's and she could feel the wild beating of her heart, of the fear and the terror that drove them here and that dogged them now-

She awoke with a start, tangled in her sheets and breathing erratically. She closed her eyes against the images that burned behind her eyelids- Ron with a squid tangled around his chest, Neville with Bellatrix's wand at his throat, Harry diving towards the Veil-

She got up and dressed in her furs and went outside. The day was just beginning to dawn, the tips of the sky tinged pink around the mountain tops, and a fire roared warmly in the center of the clearing, and Rolf Scamander was cooking breakfast. She froze when she saw him, and he raised an eye brow at her.

"Hungry?" He asked, and she sat across from him, holding her palms out towards the fire. He watched her a minute, and she watched him back. She was surprised to see that his eyes were not actually blue, but more of a light green, and that there were lines creased at the corners of them, like small crows feet. He was older than she first thought, Luna realized. She resisted the urge to question him.

"Do you like salmon?" He asked, taking the lid off of the pan between them. He smiled crookedly at her, and she almost smiled back. "I caught it yesterday, just before your group returned. Have you ever had fresh salmon?" She shook her head, and he lifted the glistening filet from the pan with a simple levitating charm. "There is no taste like it in the world."

"I thought the streams were frozen," Luna said as he cut the fish in half. He handed her her plate with a small smile.

"Heating charm," he said, and then winced a little. "A summoning charm, also, actually. I am no fisherman." Luna smiled, and he smiled back. "I don't believe we've met properly." He balanced his plate on his knees and held his hand out. "Rolf Scamander."

Luna put her own plate on her knees and took his hand in her's. It was much too big for her to hold all at once, but it was warm, in a way that made Luna want to linger. "Lu," she said simply, and she watched one eye brow inch up into his hair line.

"Just Lu?"

She nodded and withdrew her hand. "Just Lu," she echoed, and took a bite of her fish.

The next trip that went out was smaller than most. Haughting led Luna, Velma, and Rolf out three days, to a mountain ridge coated in dusty snow and slippery ice. Luna hunched at the edge and was breath taken by the sight of the world laid out before her- capped peaks and shaded valleys and purple moors. She breathed in deep and closed her eyes and thought to herself that this moment of freedom, of beauty – this was everything that they had fought for, and more.

They spent the day setting up camp and hunting around the area. When it got dark, they lit a fire and ate tasteless camp gruel around it. Haughting, coughing slightly, turned in fairly early and Velma, who was yawning before they had even made it up the ridge, went not long after. Luna, even with the dubious company that was Rolf, couldn't bear the thought of going inside her tent, where it was warm but there was no sky.

They sat in a companionable silence before Rolf suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small wrapped box. "Chocolate frog?" He asked, and tossed it to her.

She caught it and hesitated a moment before opening it. On the card, some ancient wizard that she was sure Professor Binns might have mentioned once or twice stared serenely at her. She stuffed the frog in her mouth and held the card out to him. "Do you want it?"

Rolf shook his head. He was still in the process of unwrapping his. "Nah," he said, "I have them all." He pulled his out and Luna held her breath, but he merely chucked the card into the fire. "Dumbledore," he said wryly. "I have about a hundred of those."

She tossed her card in too and watched it snap into sparks. "Do you collect them?" She asked, and he shrugged.

"When i was younger," he answered, taking a bite of his frog. He scrutinized her intently, and she felt her face slowly flush. Suppose he recognized her...

"Where are you from, Lu?"

She started, then shook her head. "Ottery ." She took a minute to watch him digress the information. "And... you?"

He shook his head. "Everywhere. My parents liked to travel. They settled into Ireland when I was almost seventeen, but it never felt like home to me." He took another frog box and opened it. "Ah! Harry Potter!" He shook his head and tucked it into his pocket. "It's a new edition, you know. They have the whole Order of the Phoenix now, and the victims from the war-"

"I know." She shook her head as he proffered her another box. "I know. I've seen them."

He looked confused at her sudden coldness, but he only shrugged and stuffed another frog in his mouth. "Why magical creatures, Lu?"

She opened her mouth – and then shut it. She didn't know how to explain it. She couldn't tell what she had told Velma, that she'd had an eccentric father and that he had rubbed off on her. She couldn't tell him the truth either, that it was nice to be accepted, and that was what animals did. They accepted you or they disliked you, no matter who you were or weren't. They didn't laugh at you because you were Loony Lovegood, and they didn't worship you because you were Luna Lovegood.

Rolf was still watching her, so she just shrugged. "They're nice," she said, and he laughed.

"Just nice?"

She sighed. "They're mysterious," she said, "And you never know exactly what you're going to get with them. And it's nice, you know, to have something to believe in, even when no one else does." She ignored the way Rolf was looking at her, like he had up until now failed to notice her. "What about you?"

"It's in my blood. My grandfather was a magizoologist. He -"

"Wrote _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." _Luna blushed when he grinned at her. "My mother gave me a copy for my seventh birthday. It was the only book I would let her read to me when I was young."

Rolf grinned. "Is that the book you put in your pocket, everywhere you go?"

She blushed. "A shrinking charm is all you really need, you know." 

"Dedication in the highest." Rolf chuckled, then sobered. "We're on a false lead, you know." Luna gaped at him and he stretched. "There's not Ratspatted Gilafones here. What the locals reported was nothing. Probably just a bear with a limp."

Luna shook her head. "So this whole expedition-"

"Was a waste of time." He sighed. "Haughting should come around in a few weeks, and then we'll be able to go back to our warm flats and families and the whole boringness of the civilized wizarding world." He sighed. "Getting late, isn't it?"

She started. "Is it?" She hadn't realized the time, or that she was even tired. She tilted her head upwards, at the sky dotted with millions of white diamonds. "It's much nicer out here."

There was a short silence, then Rolf asked unexpectedly, "How old are you, Lu?"

She looked at him and found his brow furrowed beneath his fringe of orange hair. "How old are you?" She countered, and he didn't smile.

"I'm twenty nine. And you're, what? Twenty one? Maybe twenty two?"

She wondered if she should feel flattered or insulted by his gross miscalculation. "I'll be nineteen in March," she told him, and watched the surprise flit across his face.

"You're much younger than I thought," he said with some difficulty. "How did you get on a team so quickly?"

"Haughting said it was my enthusiasm." She shivered. "He said that there was no way he could see me spending any more time locked in an office, filling out paper work and fetching coffee..." She shrugged. "I couldn't either. So he asked me to come and I jumped at the chance."

Rolf ate another frog, tossing the card into the fire. "I went to Switzerland once, to the Alps." He shook his head. "Do you that Muggles tie slats to their feet and ride them down the mountains? It is a great form of amusement for them. They call it a sport." He laughed suddenly. "I wonder what they would call Quidditch, if they saw it."

"Reckless endangerment," Luna quipped, remembering a phrase Hermione had once used. Rolf laughed uproariously, and she found herself smiling. He had a very nice laugh, she decided, one that she would like to hear more often. She went on, "Do you follow Quidditch much?"

"Just the Caerphilly Catupults," he admitted, "Although I did go through a spell where I was dedicated to the Wasps. Do you?"

She shrugged. "The Holyhead Harpies, I suppose."

"Ah ha!" he pointed a finger at her. "Just because they're an all girl team doesn't mean you have to settle for absolute rubbish!"

"I would have you know," she said with indignation, "That they are playing the England National Cup this year."

"That's only because they're Chaser is too young to be burdened with their years of defeat." He shook his head. "They took a gamble on that one – fresh from Hogwarts, no proper training-"

"She's an accomplished Chaser," Luna interrupted with a force that surprised herself. "And she led Gryffindor House to several Cups, and besides that-"

"You lived in Britain," Rolf cut in, deliberately. "So you went to Hogwarts?"

Luna paused. "What of it? So did you, I'm sure."

"I did." He pursed his lips, suddenly serious. "What year did you graduate?"

She looked away. "1998," she lied, "Although I'm not sure why it matters."

"So you were -"

"Just going to bed?" She stood, stretched, tossed the chocolate frog card box into the fire. "Thank you for the treats, Rolf. They were lovely."

And she went to bed, her heart beating in sudden frantic tandem, though she couldn't say just why.

The next morning, Haughting and Rolf set out to scour the area, while Velma and Luna remained behind, poring over maps of the region and discussing the best places to start their search. Somewhere in between reading maps and making lunch, Velma remarked slyly, "So you were up late with Rolf?"

Luna blushed, although she wasn't sure why. "Was I?"

"You were." Velma grinned sneakily at her. "How old did you say he was?"

Luna was suddenly irritated. Why was it that everyone was always so nosy, that they always wanted to ask questions and find out things that were not their's to know? Why wasn't there a single person in the world who would just let her be?

She slammed the tea pot down, and Velma gasped in shock. "He's twenty nine," she informed the open mouthed researcher, "And I didn't say." She placed the cup of tea she was holding next to the pot, with less force, and went for a walk.

The next day Haughting took Velma out, and Luna found herself, once again, sitting at the fire with Rolf Scamander, who was sniffling vigorously from a recently caught cold. He looked slightly remorseful.

"I'm sorry," he said, "For prying, the other night."

Luna took a deep breath. She remembered her fourth year, when Harry had first proposed the idea of the D.A., and she had something to look forward to every Wednesday night, and how nice it had been to be with people who did not take the time to think that she was strange and that she should not be there. It had been nice to talk to them, she remembered, Ginny and Neville and Harry and Hermione...she remembered it was the first time she had felt that she had friends at Hogwarts, that she felt as if she had people that she could talk to who were not judging her. She hadn't had someone talk to her like that, so openly, so free, until last night.

Luna smiled at Rolf. "It's alright," she said, and she meant it.

They went back to the base camp after four weeks, and it was there that Haughting gathered the team around and announced that they were going back to Greenland. "There's nothing here," he said, his shoulders slumped. "Another false lead."

"It's a bear with a limp, isn't it?" Luna heard herself saying, and when the team turned to give her quizzical looks, she didn't see it. All she saw was Rolf grinning, shaking his head at her, and she smiled back.

Their five day hike down the mountain was cold and harder than it had been up. The snows were melting, turning everything into a mush of mud and browned grass. It was an enjoyable trek, nonetheless, because Rolf was at her side. They talked, about everything they could think of- Crumple Horned Snorlacks and Wrackspurts and Nargles which,Rolf adamantly insisted, did exist.

He talked about his family – his mother and father and younger sisters, and she told him a little bit about her own. He told her about his Hogwarts years, and they laughed over stories of mutual dislike for Snape and trembling respet for McGonnagall, and awed love for Dumbledore.

"There was one mate in my year," Rolf began one day, as they marched alongside a swollen streambed, mud sucking at their boots, "And he always had this thing with the suits of armor, right? So one night him and his older brother, who was Head Boy, mind you, went out and charmed them , so whenever the clock struck the half hour, they sang a love song from the sixties, for Snape." Luna shook with laughter, and Rolf grinned at her. "Charlie was a wild one-"

"Charlie Weasley?" She interrupted, and he nodded. "Charlie and Bill did that?"

"Yes," he raised an eyebrow at her sudden intrigue. "Why?"

She shrugged. "I went to school with the younger Weasley's, that's all." She coughed. "The new Chaser for the Harpies, the one you laughed about- they're little sister, Charlie and Bill's."

"Is it, now?" He murmered with some surprise. Then he frowned and asked, very seriously, "Lu, what year did you say you graduated?"

She took a deep breath. "I didn't," she said quietly, and he looked at her.

"You didn't say?"

"No," she corrected, louder, "I didn't graduate." Rolf blinked, clearly surprised, and she hurried on, "I left. I ran away, six months before I was supposed to leave." She looked at him and found that Rolf was watching her, very seriously. "It was a lot to bear, at the time...I needed to get away, to breathe. I couldn't do that there."

Below them, the small village they had stayed at several weeks ago was approaching through the trees, and Rolf reached out and took her hand. It was mittened, but she could feel it's strength all the same.

"Lu," he asked, very seriously, "Were you there?"

it was such a small question, but the answer it deserved was so big, too big for Luna to answer all at once. So she did what she had been doing for a year and ten months now.

She ran away.

At the inn, there were three letters waiting for her, all from Ginny, The first had one photograph, Ginny gathered around a group of older girls, all holding brooms and splatted with mud, their hair tangled and ratty. The letter read:

_Dear Luna,_

_The score was 770 to 590._

_We won, of course._

_Ginny_

The next letter was just as short, and it contained simply a picture of Ginny holding a squalling, blue eyed baby.

_Dear Luna,_

_I was wrong. It was a girl. She was born on May 2. It was during Harry's slightly-less-terrible-than-last-year's speech that Fleur screamed that her water broke and Bill apparated them away. They called her Victoire, and she is the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. We all love her so much, except for Teddy. He says she smells like poo and is no fun. I'm sure he will warm up to her..._

_We all miss you._

_Ginny_

The last letter was quite a bit thicker. She opened it and to her surprise, a book tumbled out, hardcover and four hundred pages thick. She was shocked to find a drawing of herself, Neville, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fred and George, the Patil twins, Colin and Dean and Cho and Seamus and a collection of others on the cover. The title read, in bold brassy letters, _DUMBLEDORE'S ARMY: The Unbelievable True Story of the Young Heroes That Saved Their World- AND OURS._

On the inside cover, Ginny had written: _ The title sucks, and the cover art is rubbish, but they're pretty much on the straight and narrow. Did you ever think that day in the Hog's Head that when we wrote our names on that little piece of paper that one day people were going to be writing books about us? That we wouldn't be just changing the world, Lu, but that we'd be saving it? It still boggles me sometimes, how different everything could have been if we didn't do what we did. I still wonder where we got our courage. Harry always says it was love that drove us, and I'd have to agree. I miss you, Lu. Hurry home._

She read the book. It took the entire night, and when she was done, she could only just manage to lay back against her pillows and not cry. She marveled at how she could have managed to defy the Ministry, fight Dark Wizards, face interrogation- but she couldn't talk about, couldn't think about it. People had told her, after the battles were over, that there were so many who owed so much to her, and she had brushed it off. They didn't owe her anything, she told them. She had owed it to them, to do what she could for those who couldn't.

Someone knocked at her door. She stood and went to answer it, the book clutched against her chest. To her surprise, it was Rolf that stood there, bleary eyed, orange hair tousled, as if he had not slept. He looked serious, so serious that Luna felt her heart still.

"May I come in?" He asked, and stepped through before she could answer. She closed the door behind him and watched as he stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, his hands clasped behind his back, bouncing on the balls of his feet. After a long, uncomfortable silence, he blurted:

"I owe you an apology," he said. "It was rude of me to press the issue again, when you already made it clear that you didn't want to talk about it. It's just – I did the math, and I know that you were there for so much of what happened, and I was curious-"

"You don't need to be sorry," Luna interrupted him softly. "I do. I have hidden out here because I thought that if I buried myself far enough away, it would all go away. All that I saw, everything that I was a part of- but it doesn't. The world doesn't stop moving because I want it to. It carries on, and I should have been running along beside it." She crossed the room to where he stood, so that they were only inches apart. "I am sorry, Rolf, for lying to you."

He shook his head. "You don't need to apologize to me, Lu-"

"My name isn't Lu." She shook her head, softly. "It's Luna Lovegood, Rolf, and I would like you to use it."

She watched his face go from serious, to confused, to shocked. She could see that the name meant something to him. He looked from her face to the book she held against her chest, and his mouth opened.

"Dumbledore's Army," he whispered, and she thought, suddenly, that it was going to be a terrible thing to leave him today.

"Dumbledore's Army," she repeated, and he took the book from her. He turned it over and over in his hands, not really seeing it, not really feeling it.

"Why wouldn't you say anything?" He asked her finally, and she took the book back.

"It's a hard thing to live with," she told him, "Having your childhood torn from you so suddenly. It's an even harder thing to go back to normal, to pretend like it never happened. And there are always people who want to talk to you, want to hear your stories and see your scars, and mostly, all you want to do was not think about it, because when you start to, you have to remember all of the pain and the people you lost and the faces you will never see again." She coughed suddenly, and was surprised to find that her eyes were gummy with tears. She looked away, so that Rolf wouldn't see her like this, weak and small and open, but he put his fingers on her cheek and gently drew her face back towards her's.

"Luna Lovegood," he said softly, "is a _much _nicer name than Lu."

And he kissed her.

She owled a letter back to Ginny, from the inn room she took with Rolf. It was short and simple.

_Ginny,_

_Expect us at nine am, Thursday morning._

_Love, Luna._

The Portkey back to London was short and they arrived, breathless and windblown, but hand in hand. She smiled at Rolf when they landed, and he smiled back, a moment before she was hit by a whirlwind of red hair and long arms.

"Luna!"

It was Ginny, not the quiet, small Ginny of years passed, but an older, more mature one. She moved with a confidence that bellowed experience, and with a physique that she had never had in school. She drew back and grinned at Luna, and her smile was still the same. Luna smiled back, suddenly weak at the knees, and Ginny noticed for the first time, Rolf.

"Oh," she said, with a little surprise, "Who's this, Luna?"

"This," Luna said, taking up Rolf's hand again, "Is Rolf." Rolf nodded politely and Ginny grinned.

"So good to meet you, Rolf-"

"Oi! Luna!"

Ginny turned and just beyond her, Luna could see a whole gaggle of people- Neville, his hair afly and ears as prominent as ever; Ron, his arm around Hermione as if it were attached to her and not himself; Hermione, fitted to Ron's side like a puzzle piece; George, still earless and grinning; and Harry, his glasses a little off kilter, a toddler with bright purple hair and shockingly luminescent green eyes in his arms. Luna pulled away from Rolf and went to each of them hugging them, kissing them, crying with them. When she stepped back, Ginny had approached, Rolf at her side, and Harry noticed him.

"Lu," he said, "Who's this?"

Luna beamed. "This is Rolf Scamander," she said happily, "and I think we're getting married." She didn't realize until that very second that that was what she wanted, that marrying Rolf was something that she pictured herself doing with ease. She looked to him and saw that he was smiling, and she knew then that he agreed, though he had said nothing.

"Married?" Ginny and Hermione squealed at the same time, and Ron rolled his eyes.

"Always with the waterworks, girls are," he said, and Hermione, who was indeed crying, slapped his arm away. Harry laughed and lowered the little boy in his arms to the ground.

"Well, in that case," he said, offering Rolf his hand, "Welcome to the family." Rolf took it and the two men shook strongly. "I'm Harry Potter, and it's a pleasure to meet you."

"Harry," George said, nudging him aside, "I think he knows who _you _ are." He took Rolf's hands next and Rolf was moved steadily down the line, to Ron and Neville and then Hermione and Ginny, who hugged him warmly, still sniffling. Then Harry lifted the toddler back up and presented him to Luna.

"This, Lu," he said, "Is Teddy Lupin. Tell Auntie Luna hello, Ted."

"Hello," Teddy said, clearly unhappy for some reason or another, and Luna smiled at him. He had Tonk's heart shaped face, but his sulk and his eyes were so much his father that she felt for a minute that she could be talking to her old professor.

"Hello, Ted," she said, and shook his hand, which was sticky with some sort of sweet. "Why are you so unhappy?"

He shook his head. "Girl's hair," he said, pointing to his head, and Luna laughed with the rest of the group. Teddy's face screwed up, and he buried it in Harry's shoulder, shouting, "S'not funny!"

"We're not laughing at you, Ted,"Harry began, but Teddy shouted, "You are!" Harry rolled his eyes upwards and relinquished him to Ginny, who looked less than happy to have him crying into her blouse. Luna leaned down and whispered into his ear.

"Don't cry, Teddy," she said, and he peeked out at her. "You know, pink is a very good color. There was a woman who saved my life once, and her hair was pink."

"But she was a girl," Teddy said, lifting his head, "So's okay, for her." Luna shook her head and stepped back again. Rolf's arm was ready and waiting for her, and as she folded herself into him, she shook her head.

"Don't worry about it, Teddy," she said, then smiled. "It's probably all the nargles' fault anyways."

"What's a nargle?" Teddy asked, aghast, and as everyone roared into laughter, Luna felt Rolf brush a kiss against her forehead, and she knew, very suddenly, that there was nothing to run from anymore, that there never had been.

This, she reflected as Neville and George bantered between themselves, and Ron slipped an arm around Hermione, and Harry dropped kiss against on Teddy's forehead, and Ginny smiled at Luna and Rolf murmured into ear- this was what she had been fighting for, and it had been worth every second of it.


End file.
